The Boston Red Sox have called up baseball’s number 1 prospect, Roman Anthony, to start in right field and bat fifth vs. the Tampa Bay Rays on Monday.
In a move that can be labelled “better late than never”, Anthony will be counted on to spark a Red Sox team that has been underperforming over the last few weeks, and currently sit outside the AL Wildcard picture. The 21 year old hit .288/.423/.491 with 10 home runs and 29 RBIs for Triple-A Worcester, while walking 51 times, and striking out 56.
Anthony has watched as teammates Marcelo Mayer and Kristian Campbell earned promotions before him, in part because of a log jam in the outfield for Boston. When healthy, the Red Sox usually start Jarren Duran in left field, Ceddanne Rafaela in centre, and Wilyer Abreu in right field. However, with Abreu hitting the 10-day IL with a left oblique strain, starting reps in the outfield suddenly became available.
Even when Abreu returns, the club could get creative by moving Rafaela to 2nd base, and having Campbell play 1st base. That would fill the void left by Triston Casas’ season ending knee injury, while keeping the club’s “Big 3” in the major league ranks.
Despite being one of the richest clubs in baseball, Boston was very much playing the service time game with their star prospect. By delaying his call up until now, the clubs hope is that they can delay Anthony’s free agency until 2031, and avoid Super Two status which could save the club roughly $10M in the future.
Nevertheless, the good news for the Boston faithful is that their star prospect is officially headed to the MLB ranks. The question now becomes whether the club waited too long for him to be able to help turn their season around.
Despite their 32-35 record, and the fact that they lead the league in errors, Boston remains miraculously just 4 games back of the final AL Wildcard spot heading into Monday night’s slate of games. Their upcoming 3 game series vs. the Rays will be a pivotal one if they hope to close the gap between themselves and the rest of the Wildcard hopefuls.
Game 1 takes place at Fenway Park at 7:10pm ET.
Photo: Bernard Gagnon. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported, 2.5 Generic, 2.0 Generic and 1.0 Genericlicense.